As the use of personal computing devices to read and view content becomes more commonplace, there is a growing need to provide consumers with rich, interactive content, including learning content. The current generation of electronic reading technology remains relatively limited in its ability to dynamically manipulate and modify the content and its presentation to the user in accordance with the individual user's preferences and needs.
Current electronic reading technology often follows too closely to the traditional constraints of paper-based content. That is, current electronic books tend to be just digital reproductions of the paper-based content—static text and static images. These limitations may not be as pronounced when the electronic media content is a typical popular book such as a novel, since those works are normally intended to be read in linear fashion, start-to-finish, however, for more complex media content such as educational material, this presentation format provides few advantages over traditional paper based textbooks.
Some interactive textbooks that have been proposed use specialized electronic book-reading systems, using a dedicated hardware platform to support digital books written in a proprietary, compatible format for that platform. This approach, however, fails to leverage the increasing market penetration of more generalized, mainstream electronic book readers (e.g. iPad™, Nook™, Kindle™, laptop computers, mobile phones, desktop computers, etc).